San Francisco Frontiers - Sean 'Diddy' Combs sex crimes trial to begin Monday

Combs, 55, has been awaiting his day in court since last year on accusations of leading a crime ring that prosecutors say coerced victims into drug-fueled sex parties using threats and violence.

Combs has pleaded not guilty to all charges, insisting that any sex acts were consensual. At a recent hearing, his attorney Marc Agnifilo offered a preview of his team's defense by describing the artist's free-wheeling "swinger" lifestyle.

The prosecution said in court it had offered Combs a plea deal -- the specifics were not disclosed -- but that he had rejected it.

If convicted, the one-time rap producer and global superstar, who is often credited for his role in ushering hip-hop into the mainstream, could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Over the decades, the artist -- who has gone by various stage names including Puff Daddy and P Diddy -- amassed vast wealth for his work in music but also his ventures in the liquor industry.

The jury selection start date is notably the first Monday in May -- which annually marks New York's Met Gala, a glittering celebrity charity bash where Combs was once a red carpet mainstay.

Just two years ago, he posed for the cameras at that event uptown -- but on Monday, he will be in downtown in federal court, as the panel of citizens tasked with determining his fate face a barrage of questions from lawyers on both sides.

Jury selection is expected to wrap up in about a week, with opening statements tentatively scheduled for May 12.

Combs was arrested by federal agents in New York in September 2024 and denied bail multiple times.

He is being held at Brooklyn's notorious Metropolitan Detention Center, a facility plagued by complaints of vermin and decay as well as violence.

High-profile inmates there have included disgraced R&B star R. Kelly, Jeffrey Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell and Sam Bankman-Fried, the cryptocurrency entrepreneur convicted of fraud.

During pre-trial hearings, Combs has appeared in court looking remarkably aged, his once jet-black, styled coif now overgrown and gray.

- 'Freak-offs' -

Central to the case is Combs's relationship with his former girlfriend, the singer Casandra "Cassie" Ventura, who is expected to be a key trial witness.

A disturbing surveillance video from 2016, which was aired by CNN last year, shows Combs physically assaulting Ventura at a hotel.

Prosecutors say the encounter occurred following one of the "freak-offs" they argue were a feature of his pattern of abuse.

The so-called "freak-offs" were coercive, drug-fueled sexual marathons including sex workers that were sometimes filmed, according to the indictment.

It's unclear how much of the CNN video will be shown to jurors as evidence in court -- the footage's quality has been a sticking point between the opposing legal teams -- but Judge Arun Subramanian has ruled that at least some of it will be admissible.

Combs has no major convictions but has long been trailed by allegations of physical assault, dating back well into the 1990s.

The floodgates against the Grammy winner opened after Ventura filed a civil suit alleging Combs subjected her to more than a decade of coercion by physical force and drugs as well as a 2018 rape.

That 2023 suit was quickly settled out of court, but a string of similarly lurid sexual assault claims from both women and men followed -- and the federal criminal indictment dropped after a raid of his luxury properties in Miami and Los Angeles.

The indictment includes a charge of racketeering conspiracy, the federal statute known by its acronym RICO that was once seen as primarily targeting the mafia but in recent years has also been wielded frequently in cases of sexual abuse.

It allows government attorneys to project a long view of criminal activity rather than prosecuting isolated sex crimes, and requires proving "predicate acts" -- the crimes elemental to the wider pattern of illegal wrongdoing.

In 2021, it was successfully used to convict R. Kelly, the fallen R&B hitmaker who was sentenced to more than 30 years of prison including for child sex crimes.

Industry watchers are also monitoring Combs's case as a potential inflection point in the music world which, beyond the case of Kelly, has largely evaded the #MeToo reckoning that has rocked Hollywood.

S.Hall--SFF